the shoreline calls the sea
by merendina
Summary: Don't worry, say Makoto's eyes, the small, placid curve of his mouth as he walks past Haru into the sea. I'm not so scared anymore.


**A/N:** This fic would not exist were it not for "Shoreline" by Deas Vail (from which I've also culled the title).

Also I need more Haru-sided Makoharu in my life because Haru cares.

* * *

Haru holds his hand the day after the old man dies.

Makoto's always been bigger and stronger, always had broader shoulders, longer legs, but as he steps back behind Haru, recoiling away from the long line of mourners filing past them down the street, it almost appears as if he's shrinking. Haru reaches down, groping around for his hand, grips it until his knuckles turn white and he can feel the bones of Makoto's fingers press together—maybe if he holds on long enough Makoto will stop receding from him, won't disappear into the sadness that seems to have come up from the sea like vapor, soaked all the way into the air they breathe.

He doesn't cry. His eyes are wide but they don't seem to be seeing anything, except for the shards of ocean they can catch sometimes through the gaps in the crowd—slate-grey, roiling. Haru knows Makoto can hear it too, that persistent liquid crashing noise under the sound of a hundred voices droning prayer, and can feel the tremors ripple through his entire body. In and out, in and out like the tide.

Elbow crooked across Makoto's body as if to shield him, Haru moves his hand a little, laces their fingers together tightly, and holds.

—

Haru knows a different ocean, a different water-song on his skin and etched into his bones, but he also knows it'll be a long time before he can share that with Makoto.

He's looking, head cocked and expectant, toward where Makoto sits folded down on the ground next to their bags and Haru's discarded clothes, which he's (of course) already gathered into a neat pile. He's already half in the water—it's the first day of summer vacation and the sea is warm and lapping around his hips, murmuring softly, inviting—but something pushes against his bare torso that he knows is not the wind and turns it, back toward Makoto and the immovable solidity of his outline against the sand, back toward shore.

Come here, he wants to say, because it doesn't make sense for Makoto to be spending so much time with Haru's clothes and his gym bag but not with Haru himself. Wants to reach out his hand, tell him it's okay, that the water's warm and wants to say hello. But he doesn't, because even from this distance he sees the way one of Makoto's hands has dug its fingers into the sand, fingers sifting, tense and restless. Some other time, then, Haru thinks, and lets his arms hang by his sides. There'll be other summers. Other beaches, and maybe if they search hard enough they'll finally find one where he feels safe.

"Don't worry," he says instead, and it's strangely hard to turn his back on Makoto's smile. "I'll be out soon."

—

The second Haru's eyes snap open he knows that it's a storm. The storm is in his sleeping bag with him, almost, and then it carries him too fast out of sleep, out of the tent. He can feel the rain pricking his skin; the sand has no business being so clammy and wet underfoot so far from the shoreline.

Then, Makoto. Makoto in the water, but so still—it's the water that's moving him, tossing him up and down, back and forth, as though he weighs nothing at all. This isn't training now. Makoto is shrinking again, like on the day after the old man died, but this time faster, and farther, too far out of the reach of Haru's hands. And this time the ocean stands between, chasm of black water and tall waves that lift and hurl and shatter.

This must be the ocean in Makoto's imagination, Haru thinks. If it is, no wonder he's so scared. Haru feels it too, suddenly—this crushing tightness in his throat, this pounding ache that is his heart slamming itself senseless against the walls of his chest. The waves surge, and Makoto's outline bobs limply on the fringes of his vision, and suddenly the few meters of sand from where Haru stands to the shoreline have stretched to miles.

Haru tears the clothes off his body, and runs, telling himself all the while that it's not a question, that he's going to reach him.

—

The next morning it is again a different sea.

What Haru doesn't realize right away is that it's also a different Makoto. He's too distracted by the noise Nagisa's making as he tears down the shoreline at a full-tilt run, yelling that it's a race back to camp, that the last one there will have to be offered up to Gou-chan as a human sacrifice. Rei follows not far behind and it's a relief to see that his arms as they beat the water appear stronger, somehow more sure. That'll be a really solid stroke one day, Haru thinks. One day soon.

Then he and Makoto are alone, watching their friends' shapes recede, until they're no more than tiny, bright specks in the distance. It's pointless to speak, of course. Haru looks up from where he's been contemplating the sand between his toes, finds Makoto's face, and Makoto jerks his head a little toward the shoreline, where the breakers are foaming soft and green as his eyes.

Don't worry, say Makoto's eyes, the small, placid curve of his mouth as he walks past Haru into the sea. I'm not so scared anymore.

The line his back makes against the water as his legs disappear and the waves slide in to embrace him looks like the simplest thing in the world.

The sun is scorching the nape of Haru's neck—he anticipates that later the skin will burn, tender and raw, like it's been slapped—and the surf is whispering right up against his ears. But something else quickens within him then, something stronger for once than the call of the water. For a moment all he can do is stand and stare, and it feels like his feet have melted right into the sand.

—

Haru wonders—when they get to Tokyo, how far will they be from the beach?

"I'm going in," he says. Makoto's mouth opens and Haru can already hear the protestations—it's 10 PM and it's probably cold and they have an early train to catch in the morning and has he even finished packing yet—but instead Makoto says, "Okay," and drops the backpack from his shoulders.

"Go on." The soles of Makoto's shoes are padding at the sand; he's making ready to settle down, to watch. "I'll take care of your stuff."

There will be other beaches, other summers. Tomorrow morning when they step onto the 6AM train, they'll see the world expand, opening up in front of them like the pages of a book—Haru knows this. But Haru also knows that this beach is their beach, and they'll probably be away from it for a while (even if they'll find their way back to it eventually, of course, surely as the incoming tide).

"No," he says. Reaches into the air between them like he's seen Makoto do nearly every day since they were small, before he draws Haru up and out—out of the bathtub, out of the pool, always toward himself.

Makoto tilts his head, questioning.

"No," Haru tells him again, firmly, like it's the simplest thing in the world. "Let's go."

And he understands. Something bright bubbles up from inside Makoto then. Haru can see it, a warm yellow light in the night that's fallen like a blanket over their tiny town, and, oh, what a smile.

"Okay, Haru," Makoto says. He pauses, bends down only to untie his shoes, peels off his socks and folds them neatly to one side. Then he extends his hand, lets Haru grab it (finally, Haru thinks) and pull him, relentless—the two of them churning up the sand, running fully clothed through the salt air, to embrace the sea.


End file.
